Chapter 17 #2
“Stalker much?” The words taste bitter on my tongue. Still, I’d never instantly lusted after and loathed someone in the same breath as I did the moment I laid eyes on Grey.
Some meet-cute we have.
He glides closer as if he’s floating on air. “Is that why your handle on the surrogacy website was Firefly12?”
My throat itches as though I’ve just eaten something I’m allergic to.
“No, Grey. As I said before, I was Firefly12 well before you ever rolled into town.”
“Why Firefly then?”
He keeps his distance, but this thing he’s doing—communicating as though he cares—is unsettling, because regardless of my actions, I think we’re too volatile to ever truly be friends.
“Why ChasingColors?” I counter. Yes, I’m stubborn, but if he thinks he’s going to get all my secrets for free, he hasn’t been paying attention.
Surprise squeezes my chest when he fully invades my space.
“Grey, Violet, and Sage. We were all named after colors, but my life has always been in black-and-white…gray, if you will. The only flashes of life happened in the colorful people around me. Violet, my sister, was full of life and curiosity. Sage, well, you see the calming effect he has on everyone around him. I guess me having a daughter is my way of chasing those colors that are fading as life moves on without me.”
It’s shockingly honest and raw, and it unsettles me more than his name-calling.
“Why are you telling me this?” I whisper, scanning his face for any signs of deceit, but he’s either a much better liar than I gave him credit for or he’s telling the truth.
I’m not sure which would be worse.
“Because I’ve made a decision, and I’m here to offer you a…deal.”
My eye roll causes the skin around his left eye to twitch.
“What decision and what kind of deal?”
“First, tell me why Firefly.”
In my periphery, I see Chief Rigsby loading the box into his car. That means the family will descend upon us soon.
“I know you’re a truth-optional type of person, Monroe, but don’t even think about lying to me right now. Trust me, I’ll know.” He steps forward, and I retreat, only for my back to hit the side of my house.
Then he leans in.
Cinnamon and blood orange fills my nostrils. It took me a long time to figure out what the citrus scent is that lingers on his skin, but once I did, I laughed out loud. There’s nothing more fitting for a man like Grey than smelling like blood anything—he’s a shark parading around as a demigod.
“I’m not a liar, and until you can accept that, we have nothing to discuss.”
I press my hands to his chest with the intent of pushing him away, but the violent beating of his heart gives me pause.
It matches my own.
“You didn’t tell me who you were, Monroe.” His thigh presses between my legs, and my mind gets a little hazy. “You allowed me to open up, knowing it was me, and you never said anything.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing. You needed a friend. You still need a friend, but you won’t let anyone in. I don’t regret being there for you.”
“Lies spun to gold don’t make them true.”
“If you’re never going to even attempt to see things from my point of view, then what are we doing here? Why this”—I glance at our surroundings—“fake engagement? We’re going to end up killing each other.”
His large frame presses tightly into mine, and neurons fire in all the wrong directions.
“I have a theory, and I made a decision. But before you get that information, I want to test my theory, and to do that, you need to tell me why you chose Firefly as your name.”
My gaze is glued to his neck as he swallows, his Adam’s apple prominent against his tan skin.
Then he drops his head and runs his nose along the side of my cheek, his blond hair falling to skim my forehead.
“Tell me.” It’s a demand my body wants to obey even as my mind tells it to stand down while screaming danger, danger.
“I…”
He nips the lobe of my ear. It’s really freaking hard to focus with him this close.
“Fireflies flash in a pattern to attract their mate,” I manage.
“Yes, I did my own research when I left for California. And?”
He…what? “No. It’s not an and, it’s a but—the adults who glow only live a few short weeks. Like love, their life is fleeting.”
He pulls back and stares intently at every inch of my face. As uncomfortable as I am from the attention, I don’t back down. If telling him this one truth will make him forgive me, it’s worth it.
“Go on.” His words work like hypnosis in his deep, silvery voice.
“I’m getting older, and I don’t think I would make a very good mother, but growing up, I always imagined myself pregnant and with lots of babies. It makes no sense, since I knew I didn’t have a stable upbringing, therefore would have no idea how to offer one, but in all my daydreams, I was a mom.”
He encourages me with his eyes but says nothing.
“Now I’m a realist, Grey, and the reality is, kids are probably not in my future. I’m not even sure I deserve the happiness they bring, so I chose Firefly to remember the fleeting moments, the wants that will remain just out of reach.”
His hot breath brushes my ear, and it shouldn’t be so erotic.
“Becoming a surrogate,” I say. “It was my financial insurance policy in case I ever had to defend myself against the DeVanes or the Ashfords again, but it also would have given me a fleeting moment of happiness. I’d get to experience pregnancy without screwing up a kid in the process.
” I nearly collapse with the confession, but Grey’s strong presence and his thigh wedged between my legs keeps me upright.
He doesn’t say anything, but his hand has found purchase against my cheek, his thumb slowly stroking back and forth as though he cares.
“Another example of me being selfish, I suppose.” I need to break our connection, but I can’t seem to gather enough strength to do it.
“For someone who helps other people for a living, you sure are all kinds of fucked-up.”
A chuckle bursts out of me. “Most therapists need therapy, didn’t you know that?”
He slowly shakes his head. “I do now.”
The silence becomes thick, and the urge to flee is overwhelming.
“I showed you mine, now show me yours. What’s your theory, and what’s your deal?”
Challenging him is safer than whatever is happening between us.
“My theory was that you’re a hopeless romantic, but too scared and ashamed of choices you made as a child to allow yourself the pleasure of it as an adult. And my deal is this.” He cups my face with both hands, forcing me to look him in the eye.
It’s aggressive, demanding even, and it’s what finally eases my racing pulse.
When he controls me like this, I feel free for the first time since I was sixteen, and that is why I truly need therapy.
“I want a daughter.” The honest rawness in his words rips open the tender skin around all my insecurities, and my blood speeds through my veins like a dolphin chased by a predator.
“G—good luck with that.”
“And I’d like her to have a mother.”
“I know a great matchmaker—her name’s Madi. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to help.” I ignore the sharp stab of jealousy that squeezes my chest in a vice.
His grin is devious, delicious, and so damn dangerous to my well-being.
“Who I want is Firefly.”
“She doesn’t exist.”
“She’s scared,” he counters.
“You hate me.”
His long, thick thumb runs along my bottom lip, and his hungry eyes follow it as though he’s about to devour me whole.
“Do I though? I thought I did for a long time. But you know what else happens around you?”
“The Grinch in your pants grows ten sizes?”
Said Grinch rubs against my hip bone, and I stifle a sigh that desperately wants to escape.
“That’s a welcome side effect, especially since no one else has caught his attention since the first time you yelled at me. But what happens when you’re near is a colorful explosion that only you seem to create. Anger, curiosity, lust, fear…it all bubbles to the surface with you, Monroe.”
“Why fear?”
“That should be obvious.” His goddamn eyes actually sparkle in the sunshine. “My fear is what if, after all these wars, I realize I don’t actually hate you at all?”
No. Now he’s just messing with my head because he believes I lied to him. He’s playing games. He has to be.
Lowering my gaze because I can’t take the heat of him a moment longer, I ask, “What’s your deal, Grey?”
“Regardless of what happens, I’m bound to protect you because it’s my world, my connections that have caused this commotion in your life.”
“My past behavior dictates my future. Not everything is about you.”
Insufferable, arrogant ass.
“But this is. I feel it in my soul.”
I attempt to sidestep him, but he keeps a tight hold on my face.
“You have three seconds to tell me what you’re planning, or I’m out of here.” My voice is much stronger than I feel.
“The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is this: Don’t fight me.”
I’m pretty sure my expression morphs into one that can only be read as Duh. “What do you mean?”
“We’re going to plan this wedding. We’ll even put on a show while doing it, but I won’t do anything I don’t want to do, and you shouldn’t either.”
“What does that even mean?”
Damn it. I really wish he’d stop stroking my cheek like a lover.
“It means we’ll start over. We’ll explore this…thing between us without your…betrayal hanging over our heads.” His brows draw together, and he bites his lip.
What’s he thinking?
He exhales slowly. Almost as though he’s resigning himself to something. When his pale blue gaze lands on mine, I hold my breath.
“I’ll try to forgive your betrayal, and you’ll try to let me in, that’s my deal.
” I’ve never heard him speak so gently before, and my heart just stops.
I’m sure of it. “We’ll fight and make up.
We’ll figure out the push and pull that keeps slamming us together, and we’ll do it all with honest intentions and good faith. ”
He’s saying all the right words, but the Greyson I know isn’t capable of letting go of a grudge—he’s more than proven that over the last week.